Sunday, June 5, 2011

Gardening

Remember last year when I was going to do a weekly update of my garden and then I never did one?  Well this year, as I begin working full time, Isabelle and I put in a garden.  Clearly this is a cry for help.

As you may recall I had laid a piece of plywood on the grass to kill the grass in the winter and have nice black dirt the following spring.  It worked great and here I am 2 years later finally using that black dirt. (OK I think it is actually 3 years)

When we lifted up the plywood we found a whole ecosystem of bugs and worms just under the surface. My kids were entertained for quite a while by it:





Unfortunately you can't photograph the movement of the ants (well I can't, maybe a pro could.) so these pictures really just look like dirt but you can see the holes which were part of the ants tunnels.  At one point you could see all the larvae on the dirt but they quickly move all the babies to safer ground.  That was interesting to watch.


This is actually the back of the board.  Many of those specs of dirt are actually ants.


And right now you are thinking about how mindblowingly fascinating it must be to live in a house where we are all excited to watch ants crawl.

You should hear about the wild nights we spend watching our grass grow.

Anyway...

A few weeks ago we were entertained by 4 deer that decided to have dinner on the grass in the backyard.  Who can blame them?  It was several inches long as our lawn mower hadn't quite pulled it together for the first mow of the season at that point. 

As a result of that viewing we decided we were going to need something to keep more than just a few short rabbits out of the garden.  We decided we would need some sort of chicken wire cage and so Jake and I headed to Home Depot for dirt, plants for my usual summer pots and chicken wire.  John had a vision and also suggested 3 2x6 boards of treated lumber 8 feet long.  We repeated that part many times so we would remember.  While there I happened upon a junk pile and found 4 fence posts for $4.  I called John to see if he could work them into the plan and we bought them.  Then we decided that we didn't need 2x6 boards if we had fence posts and Jake and I promptly forgot we needed 3 of them and so we bought 2 2x4 boards.  They were treated and 8 feet long so I feel like we were pretty close.  When we got home I didn't really have a vision of what John was planning to build.  One of the keys to John and my success is that I am a visual learner and John is artistic so when I don't get it he draws it:



And then he and Jake build it:

 

And Isabelle and I plant it: 


I haven't had time to mark the rows yet so garden tools do the trick.

 

The chicken wire obviously isn't in yet but since nothing is growing we figure we have a week to finish up that part of the project.

Now we wait and wonder.  Can you grow 2 rows of corn, a row of cucumbers, a row of watermelon and 3 rows of lettuce in a 4x6 garden plot?  Did I mention a couple sunflowers Isabelle and I hid in there?

It is all about having fun.

And my deep denial of what a working summer will mean for my life.

2 comments:

  1. I hope that keeps those deer out! They hopped over the electric fence that kept in our horses multiple times... Then again, they had a lot more room to jump into. Good luck with your gardening ventures! I'm excited to see the results :) (I'm living vicariously through you on this one because things just don't grow here)

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  2. this post cracks me up. it is so you. and so not me. an example of why it has taken so many years to understand each other. however, i have been coming around to chaos living ever since the 4th child was born and as i read this, aside from the stress i felt reading about the home depot run, i totally was on board with you by then end. hahaha. life is definitely more fun when you lock martha stewart in the closet.

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